


Growth and the High School Students of Despair

by Eissel



Series: Whumptober 2019 [8]
Category: Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Can you tell that I can't write Aoi Toko or Hiro?, Gen, Haha the title was taken from the tagline do ya get it yet, Mentions of Violence, No 15 - Scars, Symbolism, THH Gang need more attention, The Future Foundation was made up out of assholes, Whumptober, Whumptober 2019, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-20 17:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21060371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eissel/pseuds/Eissel
Summary: Being in a killing game really changes you, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.(Hope’s Peak left them with invisible scars)





	Growth and the High School Students of Despair

_ Naegi _ \- When the Sapling Has a Chance to Grow

Breathing in the smoky sooty air on the outside of the school was the best action Makoto had ever taken is his entire _ life. _He gulped the air down, uncaring that it was dirty as all hell and would probably cut his lifespan in half. 

It was _ real _ and unfiltered and _ outside the school. _He ignored the tears threatening to spill down his face, and smiled like a loon. 

They were finally free. 

Free from Junko, free from despair, free from Hope’s Peak Academy. 

_ Free of expectations. _

_ Kirigiri _\- Sheathed Blade 

Kyoko stands stock still in the entrance of the small home they had scoped out a week after the 

Her gaze is vacant, as it often is nowadays. She had built her life around the Academy, around the Headmaster and his machinations. 

_ Your father is dead. _

Kyoko takes a breath, the soot and smoke cloyingly thick in her mouth. She coughs into her hand, disgusted by the brownish spittle and quickly goes to wash it off. As she watches the water cascade over her hand, she can help but feel like her ambitions are washing away too. 

The Academy was gone, her father was gone, and all she had left were 5 other students in the same boat as her. 

Who was Kyoko Kirigiri without Hope’s Peak Academy?

_ Togami _\- The Ascension to Heaven (is often the staircase to hell)

Byakuya sifts through the rubble alone, as per his request. The others in the meantime had probably gone to raid a supermarket (if they could find one), or check out hints of civilized life they had found a few days ago. 

His hand hits a sharp corner, and he winces, thankful that no one is around to see him be fallible. He gently lifts the stone off of the object and blows a layer of dust off of it. 

A picture. Not the first one he’s found, and he doubts it’ll be the last. At least this one is (mostly) intact. It’s a picture of his siblings right before the fateful competition that sealed their fates. He smiles and lays it by his side, going back to clearing the rocks and debris. 

He has vivid memories of this house, most generated after the competition of course, but there remain some from before. He recalls his lessons taking place in the drafty attic, the games of chase and tag, the playful ribbing before everything went straight to hell.

He gets up, and dusts off his pants. The room is looking better than when he had started, though everything is still covered in a layer of dust. Hopefully, someday soon, he can walk back in here, and enjoy the opulence it once had. 

(And if the echoes of his long gone siblings sound in the wind, Byakuya can cover it with joyful laughter from the people he’s grown to consider friends)

_ Asahina _\- Blue Mornings

When they find the first hint that other _ sane _people existed, their little group had cheered like it was New Year's Day and the ball was about to drop. Aoi had eagerly snatched up the fallen camera, and taken a picture. 

She engraves their smiling faces into her mind. The photo sits framed atop a shelf in their requisitioned home. Sometimes the picture makes her sad, because it’s _ incomplete, _it’s missing so many people… 

But other days, she sits and smiles as she looks at it, because it represented their collective hope. 

Hope for the future, hope that everything would get better. 

When the others go out for an early morning trip, Aoi stays behind to tidy up and pack their items. In her own personal bag, she makes sure to stuff the photo, a worn out booklet, and an empty plastic canteen. 

(The bottom is still crusty with dried protein powder. Aoi never uses it.)

She takes care in packing for everyone else, and strips the house of any evidence they’ve been there short of torching it. 

“I’m gonna miss this place.” She announces happily when she’s done. “But we’ve gotta be heroes now, and that means leaving behind all the sad stuff!” 

When the others arrive, she bounces out the door (the last one to leave), with a smile.

_ Hagakure _\- Imprisoned Leaves

He doesn’t tell the others, but he hates the Future Foundation. 

He hates the stuffy way they act, the way they all treat them with immediate suspicion (not that it isn’t warranted), hates how they conduct missions. 

_ He never had to kill in the Academy, why is he forced to do it now, to innocents who truly did not know any better? _

The others can sense his unease, but they never bring it up. Instead they joke, and try to make light of their situation instead. 

For Yasuhiro, they moved from one prison to another, just that one was much more blatant about it. 

_ The world’s hope. Yeah right. _

Yasuhiro puts on his uniform, and contemplates why the tie feels like a noose.

_ Fukawa _\- Corroding River

When she is put on _ probation _ of all things, Toko doesn’t feel scorned (Okay, she does _ a little _). Instead, a burning drive fills her: a desire to be better, to stand on the same level as her friends consumes her inside-out. 

She puts on her dress, and tucks Sho’s scissors into the band. 

She’s ready for action, a tight lease on her alternate personality. 

(She doesn’t anticipate what happens that week in Towa City, how could she have?)

Komaru Naegi, like her older brother, is a positive font of platitudes and other such bullshit. 

(She’s missed it.) 

When they place hands on Komaru’s megaphone, hope and joy fill her, eating away at her cynicism and anger. Her fingers are clammy, and her breathing is shallow. 

When it fires, the next second had felt like pure ecstasy. 

(She surprises herself when she elects to stay in the city. Maybe she’s growing up after all.)

_Inlet _\- A Chance for New Beginnings 

They stand together, through thick and thin, slowly growing to rely on each other. Expectations were tossed out the door the first night one of the woke up from a nightmare and were clutching their clothes so tightly it nearly ripped. 

Their sharply honed blades were cast aside in favor of a budding hope to save the new world they had found themselves in, and they rose to the challenge, casting aside their old selves, forever marked by the mental scars. 

A pink haired girl 'smiled' to herself in the midst of the chaos (They may have been enemies at the end of the day, but she still cared in her own twisted way). 

The students of despair had finally graduated Hope's Peak Academy.


End file.
